Skopje, 9 January 2025 (MIA) — The Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning held a coordination meeting Thursday with representatives of state institutions tasked with implementing the government's 2024-25 Heating Season Action Plan to tackle the country's air pollution problem.

According to an official press release, the coordination meeting was chaired by Deputy Minister of Environment Ane Lashkoska and the ministry's Clean Air Workgroup chair Besa Tateshi.

The meeting aimed to encourage stakeholders to consistently fulfill their duties, the release said.

Meeting participants exchanged experiences and listed challenges they were facing on the ground. They also expressed their readiness to use all available resources to reduce air pollution.

The Ministry of Environment representatives requested that institutions submit reports on activities they had taken so far to address the problem so as to gain insight into the level of implementation of their action plan.

In addition, assistance was offered to any municipalities that had not developed or were currently developing local plans for short-term air quality measures. They were told they needed to implement these measures as soon as possible given the dangerous levels of PM2.5 and PM10 reported nationwide.

The meeting also discussed the long-term measures being designed by the government to address the country's unhealthy air problem in the future. mr/